A Study on the Historical Development of China’s Sports Dream

China’s sports dream was profoundly influenced by traditional Chinese culture in ancient China. At that time, the primary purpose of sports was bodybuilding, health preserving and entertainment. The ruling class never advocated even suppressed the phenomenon of emphasizing literacy and military force for the need of their ruling. In semi-colonial and semi-feudal old China, with the foreign invasion and inside corruption, modern sports were introduced to China and the China’s sports dream had a strong sense of survival and participation. However, sports level as a whole was not high. At present, with the rejuvenation of Chinese nation’s “Chinese Dream”, combining with Chinese excellent traditional culture, China plays a vital role in realizing China’s sports dream,  promoting Chinese sports soft power, shaping China’s international sporting image, eliminating alienation in modern sports and establishing new international sports order

Prognostic value of routine laboratory variables in prediction of breast cancer recurrence.

The prognostic value of routine laboratory variables in breast cancer has been largely overlooked. Based on laboratory tests commonly performed in clinical practice, we aimed to develop a new model to predict disease free survival (DFS) after surgical removal of primary breast cancer. In a cohort of 1,596 breast cancer patients, we analyzed the associations of 33 laboratory variables with patient DFS. Based on 3 significant laboratory variables (hemoglobin, alkaline phosphatase, and international normalized ratio), together with important demographic and clinical variables, we developed a prognostic model, achieving the area under the curve of 0.79. We categorized patients into 3 risk groups according to the prognostic index developed from the final model. Compared with the patients in the low-risk group, those in the medium- and high-risk group had a significantly increased risk of recurrence with a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.75 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.30-2.38) and 4.66 (95% CI 3.54-6.14), respectively. The results from the training set were validated in the testing set. Overall, our prognostic model incorporating readily available routine laboratory tests is powerful in identifying breast cancer patients who are at high risk of recurrence. Further study is warranted to validate its clinical application

Floroindole confers protection against cecal ligation and puncture-induced sepsis via inhibition of NF-kB p65 phosphorylation

Purpose: To investigate the protective effect of floroindole against cecal ligation and puncture (CLP)- induced sepsis, as well as the underlying mechanism of action. Methods: Thirty-five 10–week-old male Wistar rats weighing 190 - 210 g (mean: 200.00 ± 10.10 g) were used for this study. The rats were randomly assigned to seven groups of five rats each, viz, normal control group, and six CLP groups. The CLP groups were those subjected to cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). The first 5 CLP groups received 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 mg/kg floroindole, respectively, 1 h after CLP, via intraperitoneal route (i.p.) while the 6th CLP group served as untreated control. Western blotting, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) were used for the assessment of the expression levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF- α), interleukn-6 (IL-6), nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain 2 (NOD2) and p-NF-κB p65. Results: Cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) significantly and time-dependently upregulated the expressions of TNF-α, IL-6 and NOD2 in intestinal tissues of rats (p < 0.05). However, treatment with floroindole significantly, and dose-dependently down-regulated CLP-induced expressions of these proteins (p < 0.05). Treatment of rats with floroindole also significantly and dose-dependently inhibited CLP-induced phosphorylation of NF-κB p65 in rat ileum (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The results obtained in this study demonstrate that floroindole confers some degree of protection against CLP-induced sepsis via inhibition of NF-κB p65 phosphorylation

Frequent mental distress among adults in the United States and its association with socio-demographic characteristics, unhealthy lifestyle, and chronic physical health status

Frequent mental distress (FMD) is a measure of poor mental health days for at least 14 days out of 30 days. It is one of the important dimensions of the health-related quality of life. The underlying causes of FMD are diverse. However, the issue has not been explored extensively due to the lack of reliable data on mental health. The aim of this study was to examine the level and trends of FMD among the adults of the United States (US) and identify the socio-demographic, lifestyles, and chronic health outcomes related correlates of FMD. The data for the study was obtained from the publicly available 2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in the US, covering a large sample of 418,268 adult respondents from all the 50 states and participating territories. Respondents from each state and territory were identified by selecting the telephone number from the telephone directory following a systematic sampling design. To examine the trends in the prevalence of FMD, data from the 2010-2018 BRFSS were also utilized. Both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques, including multiple logistic regression models were employed to analyze the data. Results indicated that about 12% of the adults in the US experienced FMD, and the prevalence of FMD is increasing overtime. Females, students, adults aged below 35 years, multiracial, less educated, single, low income, and underweight individuals were found to have a higher risk of FMD. FMD was found to be significantly associated with unhealthy lifestyles and chronic health conditions. This study findings highlight the importance of interventions for mental health promotion and mental illness prevention, substance use prevention, screening and treatment services of FMD, and increased provision of resources to address social and economic determinants of FMD

Dielectric Response of Sr Doped CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂ Ceramics

Ca1−xSrxCu3Ti4O12 (x=0, 0.1, and 0.2) ceramics were fabricated and their dielectric properties were investigated. It was found that the dielectric constant significantly decreased with the increase of Sr content at low temperature region (\u3c250 K) and remained almost unchanged at high temperature region (\u3e250 K). Three sets of relaxation peaks were observed in electric modulus plots, which were considered to be associated with grains, domain boundaries, and grain boundaries, respectively. Through the analysis of the heights and calculated activation energies of the relaxation peaks, it is strongly believed that the suppressed dielectric constant is related to the change of domain boundaries with Sr doping. ©2007 American Institute of Physic

Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Multistage Serial Manufacturing Systems with Rework Loops and Product Polymorphism

This paper studies multistage serial manufacturing systems with the integrated consideration of machine failures, process defects, multiple rework loops, etc. In particular, multiple rework loops and product polymorphism lead to a more complex conversion of internal material flows, and therefore it's difficult to model and analyse such manufacturing systems. A modular modeling method based on Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets (GSPN) is presented to characterize the material flows, it is capable of representing the processing differences resulting from product polymorphism comparing with traditional Markov model or Queuing network model. By analysing the model, the processing ratio of each workstation is inferred. Using 2M1B (two-machine and one-buffer) Markov cell model as the building blocks, which is obtained based on the GSPN models for their isomorphism, an overlapping decomposition method is then developed for evaluating the performance of the multistage serial systems with rework loops. Numerical experiments and a case study of a powertrain assembly line illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method